Nutritionists Daphne AL

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Fats for your health

Fats: For Your HealthBy Monique N. Gilbert

The body needs a certain amount of fat in the diet. It stores fat to serve as a quick energy source and to protect important organs. However, all fats and oils are high in calories. Fats provide 9 calories for each gram contained in food, while protein and carbohydrates each provide only 4 calories. While fat is necessary and essential for proper health, some types of fats are damaging to the cardiovascular system.

Artery-clogging fats that increase blood cholesterol include saturated fat and trans fat. Saturated fat mainly comes from animal sources like meat and dairy products, but it can also be found in coconut and palm oils. Trans fat comes from hydrogenated vegetable oils, like margarine and vegetable shortening. Both saturated fats and trans fats stay solid at room temperature.

A more heart healthy fat is unsaturated fat, generally found in vegetables. This type of fat includes both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fat is found in olive, canola and peanut oils. These oils are liquid at room temperature but start to thicken when refrigerated. This type of fat is considered the healthiest for your heart and body. Avocados and nuts also contain monounsaturated fat. Polyunsaturated fat is found in soybean, corn, safflower and sunflower oils. These oils are liquid at room temperature and in the refrigerator. This type of fat is considered the next healthiest fat that does not clog arteries.

However, when unsaturated vegetable oils are manufactured into solid form, they turn into trans fats. This type of fat is commonly called fully or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in a food's list of ingredients. Trans fats are found in hundreds of processed foods, usually to protect against spoiling and to enhance flavor. Restaurants tend to use a lot of trans fat (hydrogenated vegetable oil), especially for frying.

Trans fats are even worse for the cardiovascular system than saturated fats. Researchers have conservatively calculated that trans fats alone account for at least 30,000 premature deaths from heart disease every year in the United States. Recent studies indicate that trans fats drive up the body's LDL, the bad cholesterol, even faster than saturated fats. High levels of cholesterol have been linked to heart disease and stroke.

Diets high in fat, particularly saturated fat, also promotes breast, colon, endometrial, lung, prostate and rectal cancers. Therefore, saturated fats and trans fats are the only fats that we should strive to eliminate from our diet. Replace these fats with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. The American Heart Association recommends that daily fat intake should be less than 30 percent of total calories; saturated fat intake less than 8-10 percent of total calories, and cholesterol less than 300 milligrams per day. Always read the Nutrition Facts label and list of ingredients to find out the amount of, and t...

Nutrition, Does Excess Protein Turn to Fat? An Anatomy Lesson

By Maia Appleby

Everyone knows that overeating leads to excess weight. This concept comes in many flavors these days, though. Some people think that carbohydrates are the culprit. Others think it's sugar. Some people think that eating lots of protein couldn't possibly make them gain weight. Hmmm...

The only way to determine the answer to this enigma is to go inside the human body and take a look at how fat gets there in the first place. Let's follow a bite of pepperoni pizza and see what happens to its sugar, fat and protein. Open wide!

The food enters your mouth:

Saliva contains enzymes that break any starch in the food down to sugar.

This, along with any fat and water in the food, travel to the stomach, which churns them up.

Pepsin (an enzyme that digests protein) and hydrochloric acid further break down the food, turning it into a substance called chyme.

The mixture enters the duodenum, (the place where the gall bladder secretes its bile).

This bile dissolves the fat in water, thinning it out and making it easier to absorb.

Enzymes from the pancreas enter the duodenum and further break down the sugar, fat and protein.

Now everything is dissolved and is in fluid form, so it is absorbed through the lining of the small bowel. Fat, sugar and protein wave good-bye to each other and go their separate ways.

What happens to the sugar:

It also goes directly into the blood stream, and several different organs take the sugar they need as it passes by.

Some is stored in the liver as glycogen.

Whatever is left is converted to fat and stored in fat cells with the excess fat above.

What happens to the fat:

First, it goes into the blood stream and travels to the liver.

The liver burns some of the fat, converts some to other substances (one is cholesterol) and sends the rest to fat cells, where they wait until they are needed.

What happens to the protein:

It is broken down into building blocks known as peptides.

Then, it is further broken down and it becomes amino acids.

The amino acids are absorbed through the small intestine's lining and enter the blood stream.

From here, some of the amino acids build the body's protein stores.

Excess amino acids are converted to fats and sugars and follow the paths described above.

This is such a simple concept, but many people still believe that consuming lots and lots of protein will put muscle on their bones. Don't be fooled by this notion! Even excess protein turns to fat.

Here is a picturesque illustration of the real cause of weight gain. Eating too much food! Dietary fat is obviously the substance most often stored as fat in the ends, but no matter what you eat, your body takes whatever it can't use and sends it to fat cells. If you don't burn it off or expel it, it hangs around in your fat cells, no matter what it consists of.

Maia Appleby is a certified personal trainer and weight loss consultant at a fitness center in south Florida. For more ...